To cure cancer and heart disease (as opposed to postponing death caused by cancer and heart disease) you would have to stop senescence. As long as senescence continues, heart disease and cancer will occur.
When viewed in this light, you can see that Locaha's comment makes perfect sense.
Google's announcement, Time magazine rather sensationalist headline.
In any case, it's nice to know that Google set its sights to "challenge ... aging and associated diseases". Apple's Tim Cook:
For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way.
One more step towards "world optimization".